Dream a Little Dream of Me
by bookwrm0706
Summary: One night, Sam's dream takes an unexpected turn.


A/N: Written for Sabriel Week over on Tumblr. Takes place sometime after Changing Channels. Thanks to gongjins and team-free-will over on Tumblr for the beta.

It's two o'clock in the morning, and Lucifer is about two thirds of the way through his nightly speech on the inevitability of Sam saying "yes." By this point, Sam's heard it so many times that he could probably recite it back at him. He briefly wonders whether doing so would amuse the fallen archangel or just piss him off, but quickly decides that neither reaction is worth breaking the stony silence he's managed to maintain for the past three weeks.

He'd learned early on that trying to argue the point with Lucifer only encouraged him, so now he spends his nights feigning deafness and trying to find interesting patterns in the stains on the carpet. It's a little surprising that Lucifer lets him get away with ignoring him, but he supposes that the way he flinches every time Lucifer brings up a particularly sore point gives away the fact that a lot of the verbal blows are hitting home.

For the seventeenth time that night, Sam wishes he could just get up and walk out of the room, but he's not stupid enough to turn his back on the Devil, even if it is only a dream.

He's trying to distract himself by contemplating the vaguely fish-shaped stain by his left foot when Lucifer suddenly falls silent. When Sam looks up, it's to find him frozen mid-gesture, like a recording someone hit the pause button on.

"That's better," pipes up a snarky voice behind him. "He always did love to hear himself talk."

Sam spins around and finds himself staring down at a pair of mischievously sparkling honey-gold eyes. His mouth hangs open for a few seconds before sputtering out, "Gabriel? What are you doing here?" because the last time he'd seen the pint-sized archangel he'd been trapped in a ring of holy fire in an empty warehouse.

Gabriel sighs in mock-exasperation. "Can't do anything the easy way, can you, kiddo? I go to the trouble of blocking Luci's number so he can't call you anymore, and you just keep replaying the old messages he left on your voicemail."

Sam's mental wheels spin for a moment while he processes all the implications of that statement. "Wait, you mean you've been keeping Lucifer out of my dreams?"

"Isn't that what I just said?"

"Since when?"

"Since about a week ago. Any and all guest appearances since then have just been good, old fashioned, 100% self-induced bad dreams, courtesy of your own noggin." He reaches up and pokes Sam in the middle of the forehead to emphasize the point.

"But… why would you do that? Last time I saw you, you were pretty gung-ho about the whole 'Lucifer jumping my bones' plan."

Gabriel huffs out a breath and shoves his hands in his pockets. If Sam didn't know any better, he'd say the archangel looked embarrassed.

"Let's just say that some of the things you and your brother said made me look at things from an angle I hadn't considered before."

There's a moment of silence while Sam digests this. "So… does that mean you'll help us?"

Gabriel glares up at him without any heat before sidestepping the question. "I suppose, if your Stanford-sized brain is going to insist on keeping up the nightly visits from my dickbag brother, we should at least try to trick it into making them a little less unpleasant." Smirking, he brings up his hand and snaps his fingers with a flourish.

When Sam turns to look back at Lucifer, he's still frozen in exactly the same position as before. Except now, he's dressed in a royal blue sequined evening gown, complete with high heels, elbow gloves, heavy eye makeup, and a 20-foot feather boa.

Sam can't help it. He bursts out laughing.

It's a full five minutes before Sam is able to get himself back under control. Still chuckling, he grins down at Gabriel and nudges him in the shoulder. "Thanks for that."

The smile Gabriel gives him in return is genuine, with no trace of the familiar Trickster smirk. "Any time, kiddo."


End file.
